£18m Price-Tag Placed On ‘The Next Rio Ferdinand’

West Ham United have slapped a price-tag of £18,000,000 on their 17-year old defender Reece Oxford. It’s been heavily reported many of England’s top teams have been keeping a close eye on Oxford for many months now, with Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City and Premier League old boys, Newcastle United said to be very keen.

Reece made his senior debut for West Ham at just 16-years old, becoming the youngest player on the opening day of last season, starting in a defensive midfield role in the comfortable 2-0 win at The Emirates, in which he notably kept Mesut Ozil somewhat silent. Oxford went on to play a further 12 times for West Ham following his debut, coming off the bench for most of those appearances.

Being labelled as ‘The next Rio Ferdinand’ by many pundits in the game, a ball-playing defender who is calm and collected is a major appraisal for the youngster who would prefer to stay in East London. West Ham have already had bids come in for the England U19 international, who recently helped his nation reach the Euro under-19’s semi-finals. Having already rejected a bid in the region of just over £10,000,000 from newly promoted Bundesliga side Red Bull Leipzig, West Ham are keen to keep hold of their bright spark, who is definitely one for the future.

This week its emerged as both Manchester clubs to be leading the race to sign the highly rated 17-year old, with Manchester City’s Director of football Txiki Begiristain belived to be a fan of Reece and wants to boost City’s number of homegrown talent over the coming seasons. Sources around West Ham state that Oxford would like to remian in East London, but with the modern game its footballers agents that want to try and get a move away to a ‘bigger club’ for massive signing on fee’s and wages.

It’s believed that Reece’s agent wants his clients wages to be matched up with the £18,000,000 price tag set this week, which has currently stalled the youngster signing a new deal with The Hammers. This could be a bit of a problem as West Ham are well known for wage structures often missing out on players demanding heavy wages, and the club don’t want to be paying over the odds for someone who wont be a weekly starter just yet.